


Stage Three

by violenteer



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, No Shoes No Shirt Many Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 00:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violenteer/pseuds/violenteer
Summary: Waylon finds himself tired and tormented on Gluskin's table, awaiting death. It doesn't come.





	

“Just a few cuts here, and here. Rid you of everything… vulgar. I’ll create a warm place for my seed. For our children.” Gluskin mused to himself more than Waylon.

 

His eyes were shining with hope and happiness, the cleaver in his left hand just as brilliant. In a way, the two were the exact same. Dull in morality, sharp in atrocity. Meaningless to Waylon. Absolutely meaningless.

 

The world itself had started to implode as he was on what had to pass for a surgical table, though Waylon knew it was a poorly-kept stretcher. And wooden, for God’s sake. How long had it been since Murkoff themselves updated anything in the asylum? How long had it been since they’d cleaned the place? Since they’d restocked it, or – Waylon shook his head. Fuck it. Fuck it! Who cared?

 

“This gonna cure you, you think?” Waylon asked above Gluskin’s excited chatter.

 

The hulking groom paused in his tired monologue and glanced down at Waylon, beyond his naked dick – his vulgarity – to his face. The man’s eyes were peeled in confusion, suspicion.

 

“Maybe if you kill enough men you’ll figure it out. No one’s strong enough for you. And not a single goddamn person in this hell hole is gonna ask for it.” Waylon scoffed.

 

Gluskin walked to the head of the stretcher. For some twisted reason, he was still listening. Waylon’s throat had gone dry from dehydration, his stomach roiling from all the shit he’d seen before this – his end. Would it be so bad to bleed out, here? Waylon didn’t think so. He would be a naked and broken addition to the rest of the mangled remains of humanity at Mount Massive. His blood would decorate the walls; would complement other blood.

 

His soul would return to heaven, or it would find its way into another being. Maybe Waylon would just die and sleep forever. That sounded nice too. That sounded peaceful.

 

“You’ll have to be still, darling.” Gluskin said.

 

But he’d said it before. And he’d say it again, as Waylon was writhing in uncontrollable agony after being torn apart.

 

“My name is Waylon Park. Waylon. Remember that name, alright? I’m sorry.” He continued.

 

If this was Waylon’s punishment for his ignorance, he would abide. He had no chance but to abide, but even in his mind, he would abide. There was no use in screaming for mercy. There was no use in appealing to the gentle chauvinist that insisted Waylon needed a lethal sex change. Gluskin lived inside of the world he’d been forced to see from the first day his father raped him. He’d had to survive that, and as a result, he wound up here. After murder and mutilation, after a ruling in the first, this crazy bastard wound up in hell.

 

What were the rules for the life Gluskin lived? What was and wasn’t mendable? Where had his sanity gone? Was it retrievable? Had it ever existed?

 

Waylon had no idea. All he knew was that up until he’d accepted Murkoff’s job offer, his life had been nice. His wife – his Lisa – was absolutely beautiful in every way that mattered. She was kind and steadfast, and the best mother to their children. She was the ruler in the family, and by her side Waylon had never been happier. Not in all his twenty-six years.

 

His children would be fine without him. Of that, he was sure. They might even be better off. Waylon wouldn’t be able to come back from this stint with every screw in his head where it should be. No, no. That wasn’t the case. In a way, he wanted to die.

 

In a way, it’s what Waylon needed.

 

“If I could hold your hand, I would.” Eddie whispered.

 

His voice was admittedly very nice. There was a faint distortion; the morphogenic engine must have fractured his jaw, it must have. The insidious tailor hissed certain words more than he pronounced them. Even so. Waylon could have heard worse in his last moments.

 

“In another life, Eddie, you might mean that.” Waylon murmured.

 

There were tears inching from the corners of his eyes.

 

“Just do it.”

 

Gluskin perked up at the mention of his name, but was otherwise buried within his psychosis.

 

“I’ll make it quick, my love.” He assured.

 

The table saw was already rumbling. Waylon had wondered which one Gluskin would use, but now he knew.

 

How long had it taken the other poor fucks who’d played bride to bleed dry? Was it minutes, or longer? Was there reprieve in immediacy, or was that a pipe dream? Waylon wished that he’d paid better attention. It was too late now to ask. Even if he did, what would Eddie assume of it? Waylon didn’t know. Screw it.

 

“How long did it take the other whores to die?” He asked.

 

In an agonizingly slow fashion, he was being pulled closer and closer to the electric blade, its razors spinning faster than the human eye could catch.

 

“ _What?_ Agh!”

 

That was all it took, for some reason. Some hesitation, a little bit of question and answer action, and Waylon had the good grace of god or some other divine asshole glancing down on him and giving him a pass. That pass took shape as a patient bum-rushing Eddie into the next room. The sewing room, it could have been. Or maybe the one lined and filled with wooden shelves. Waylon didn’t know. He didn’t know.

 

But the force of the attacker had left one of his bindings to crumble, and that was Waylon’s kick in the ass to get back to fighting.

 

He was completely free in seconds, stray rope clinging to parts of his ankles and wrists. Waylon didn’t care. Why would it have ever mattered? He’d wear the coarse material for the rest of his life if that’s what had to happen. Sweet Jesus, he was free!

 

“Whore!” Eddie was screaming, his voice distant and broken.

 

With any luck at all, that divine assailant took an eye out. Something to slow him down. Waylon needed things slow. As soon as his feet hit the floor of the asylum, he felt his ankle protest loudly.

 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Waylon looked down at his bad leg to find it swollen from the lower shin down. There was a sick amount of blood crusted over on his skin, and at the center of it all, Waylon felt the rip of a freshly-opened wound. More blood would trickle from the injury soon, and then all Gluskin would have to do was follow the trail.

 

Blaire was a real piece of shit for taking Waylon’s shoes, he thought absently. If he wasn’t dying right there, right then, tetanus would get his ass on the way to the hospital.  

 

Tetanus, blood loss, or castration. Which would Waylon choose? None. None of them.

 

As soon as his jumpsuit was clawed over his thighs and shoulders, zipped as far as he could get it without choking the air from his windpipe, the programmer was running. His leg wouldn’t allow for anything beside choppy jogging, but even that was better than nothing.

 

Behind him there was crashing still. Eddie sounded manic, and whoever had come between him and Waylon was on his way out. Waylon could hear the gurgling of a man whose neck was no longer safely intact. As much as Waylon hated himself for it, he was only _afraid_ of what was about to be another murder. Gluskin’s chew toy was about to lose its appeal, and inevitably, he would catch up to Waylon.

 

Like with all the tragedy that Mount Massive had facilitated and kept within its rust-colored walls, it was only a matter of time.

 

Waylon was at the end of a long and narrow corridor as he thought through this all. His foot was killing him, and he swore he could feel the bones in his ankle grind together uncomfortably, but there was nothing to be done but move forward.

 

“Waylon!” A monstrous voice boomed to his distant left.

 

Gluskin. Was it Gluskin? Waylon furrowed his brow. He’d used Waylon’s given name. Which wasn’t impossible, but was intensely jarring, for it meant that the crazed man wasn’t completely signed off. He had a link to reality; he was taking in his surroundings. He could learn.

 

It made Waylon swallow uneasily.

 

“Come back! I’m alright, and you! You aren’t done, here!”

 

Waylon heard wild footsteps pounding on the mildewed floorboards of the vocational block. Gluskin was coming in fast. What could Waylon do? He’d already hid. It hadn’t worked out. He’d already played victim; that went pear-shaped, too. What were his last options?

 

 _Run, hide, survive._ It was a mantra that Murkoff security repeated to themselves before they ventured into the asylum. Waylon heard it before, but he never pictured himself needing the words for himself.

 

He’d done everything but survive, and at this rate, it was looking increasingly futile. Waylon couldn’t get away fast enough, and Eddie knew every crack and crevice of this block. The only option he had left was to withstand whatever would happen next.

 

“You who – oh.” Gluskin stopped short, finally in front of Waylon.

 

With every ounce of strength he had, Waylon drew himself up to full height and stared. He tried to look unaffected. Internally, he was wondering how long it would take until he was naked and shivering on that table, again.

 

“Darling, you’re –“

 

“Trapped. Like a rat in a maze.”

 

Gluskin blinked and then smiled grimly.

 

“Love makes a fool of us all, does it not?” He stepped forward confidently.

 

Waylon stayed where he was.

 

“You remember my name?” he asked.

 

“Waylon.” Eddie answered.

 

Another step forward.

 

As he was walking closer, Waylon realized that he was bleeding steadily from a place high up on his chest. His bowtie was covered, and the thick liquid was only running down.

 

“You remember who I am?” he pressed.

 

Eddie was squinting again.

 

“Hired. By Murkoff. The company that left you to rot in here. Unless they need you. Then you’re downstairs. With people like me.”

 

The air felt like it changed, as Waylon spoke. He knew he wasn’t stronger or better off. In fact, this could be undoing him. But Gluskin had stopped moving. And there was no knife in his hands.

 

“I’ll ask you again: do you remember me?”

 

Eddie lifted his hand. Waylon expected a stinging backhand, but instead, the warmth from a blood-drenched palm met his face gently.

 

“I remember you.” Gluskin muttered, sounding furious.

 

He stood as tall as Waylon’s father-in-law with twice the intimidation, twice the intensity. His eyes were covered in red and blue and black, and the rest of his face was no better. Eddie was built to withstand; he was built to offend and defend at once. He was enormous and unrelenting, and worst of all, his attention was fully trained on Waylon.

 

Another one of his hands came up to brace Waylon’s neck. He held it, and Waylon as an extension, against a boarded-up door. The two-by-fours pressed into his back. With effort, Waylon suppressed a wince.

 

“You’re going to save me.”

 

Before Waylon could think to question that, Eddie had descended on him, their lips pressed together in a strangely intimate act of desperation. Waylon thought that it would be alright if he kept himself still, if he didn’t react. But Eddie needed an answer to his command, and within this revelation, Waylon knew there would be protection attached.

 

No matter how impermanent, he needed it.

 

Shakily, Waylon held either of Eddie’s arms, angled himself into it. It wasn’t a bad kiss. Not really. Eddie was invasive, his tongue swiping out after only a few seconds. Waylon handled it, though. Kept them both from nose-diving off any terrible edge.

 

After a few minutes, Eddie pulled away. His expression was impassioned; he was set in his decision.

 

“You’re going to save me, and when we’re free, I’ll save you, too. Darling. Waylon.”  

 

Waylon smiled and chuckled to himself. There was the rub. Well, if he knew it was coming, there was at least time to keep his dick attached to his body.

 

“Deal.” He responded, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, prepared to move.

 

Mount Massive wasn’t through with either of them. Not yet. 


End file.
